“Misfit” is not the word that comes to mind when thinking about Denzel Washington, 61, or Chris Pratt, 37. Washington, a two-time Academy Award winner, has been playing gritty, gripping characters for four decades in films like Training Day and Flight. Pratt rose to fame as the goofy guy on TV’s Parks and Recreation in 2009 before moving into breezy blockbuster film roles in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. Now the two headline The Magnificent Seven, a Western that hits theaters September 23, which Pratt describes as “seven misfit personalities all coming together to fight for something that’s bigger than themselves.”

They are joined by Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Matt Bomer, Vincent D’Onofrio and Haley Bennett in the remake of the iconic 1960 film, which itself was a remake of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai.

The movie was filmed just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the scorching summer of 2015. The two “misfits” sat down with Parade to talk about their characters, their families (Washington is a father of four with his wife of 33 years, Pauletta; Pratt has been married to actress Anna Faris for seven years, and they have one son, 3-year-old Jack) and what it was like to play cowboys in the blazing summer heat.

Did you both grow up watching Westerns?

Washington: Sunday nights, we watched Ed Sullivan, I think at 8, and then we watched Bonanza—and I knew when that went off, you had to go to bed. But every week we got to watch this Western family. It was a cool world, and they had power—they owned the Ponderosa. Little Joe had his gun kind of sideways, Hoss was knockin’ people out.

Pratt: My dad was a big fan [of Westerns], and growing up it never connected with me. But now that I’m a dad—and I don’t know if it’s a combination of my dad being gone and me trying to get back to finding him—but I really embraced it four or five years ago.

Denzel, your character Sam Chisolm is a bounty hunter; Chris, your Josh Farraday is a gambler—but they both want to fight to help this town. Are Sam and Josh good guys or bad guys?

Pratt: I think my character is somebody who for a long time in his life was convinced he was bad. I think when a person thinks they’re bad, they let themselves do things that are bad. And then when they realize they’re good, they feel guilty for the things they’ve done. That was where I felt this character probably lived.

Washington: You appreciate someone who knows the difference—who decides to do the right thing even knowing what the consequences are going to be. That’s a hero.

So what’s more fun, playing the good guy or the bad guy?

Pratt: There’s a funny thing I heard about acting: When you play a villain, you have to imagine in your mind that you’re the good guy, and when you’re the good guy, you have to fear in your mind that you may be the villain. A good villain is like, “What I’m doing is right. These people need to die.” That’s what makes a villain complicated—that in their mind, they’re doing the right thing.

Washington: The bad guy is a lot of fun. But these guys are both—they’re good guys that have done bad things.

Pratt: Ooh, that was good: They’re good guys who have done bad things. I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to play the bad guy. Hopefully I’ll play one, one time. [In this film] I think he wants other people to believe he’s bad. Or . . . oh, God, am I the villain, thinking I’m a hero? Oh no!

Denzel, how does Chisolm fit into the pantheon of characters you’ve played—and won awards for—over the years?

Washington: I don’t look at the work that way. The ones I’ve done are behind me. People ask me what my favorite film is. I say, “My next one.” I don’t think about them. I don’t want to go do another Western right after this. It may be a guy on a horse, but it would be a totally different story.

Chris, your Guardians of the Galaxy character, Peter Quill, was sort of a space cowboy. Do you think he’s similar to your Magnificent Seven character?

Pratt: I think Peter is stunted emotionally as a child, and I don’t think that is the case with Farraday. There’s something similar in him, but it’s not intentional—that’s just always going to happen when I play a role, because part of me is going to come through those characters. I guess they’re both incredibly handsome.

Washington: [Laughs] And honest.

Pratt: And humble—most important, humble. I did see this as an option to do something unlike anything I’d done before.

Chris, you started out on Parks and Rec as the funny guy, and now you’re playing this role, which is about as “man’s man” as it gets. Did you plot that path?

Pratt: No, I did not. I really didn’t. It’s about 16 years I’ve been acting, and the first 70, 80 percent of that, I was auditioning for everything. If they said yes, I did it! That was my rule. [But] this film was something I wanted to do.

What about you, Denzel? If you could only play the good guy or bad guy for the rest of your career . . .

Washington: I don’t think I’ve played a goofy, funny man. I gotta work on that.

You both had to develop your cowboy skills for this film. Had either of you been on horses this much before?

Washington: I never rode this much. There was a whole lot of, “And . . . cut!”

Pratt: [In his “director’s voice”] “All right, Chris, let’s do it again. Is there any way you can not look terrified? Remember, Farraday is not petrified of horses.”

How much practice did you need for the gunslinging and twirling?

Pratt: We have to give credit to a gentleman by the name of Thell Reed, who is a world champion gunslinger and fast-draw shooter who’s been around so long that at 15 years old, he was on The Ed Sullivan Show. I mean, the guy’s awesome. Everyone was practicing gun twirling.

Washington: You had the guns a lot, so you were always fiddling around. They become a part of you.

Pratt: “Denzel! Do you mind standing over there? It’s about 20 degrees hotter around you and your horse right now.” One day we did this battle scene with a big action sequence: I sprint, take two shots; sprint 50 yards, take two more shots. I drank maybe 25 bottles of water and sweated them all out! I sweated through three wardrobe changes—like, completely soaked as if I had jumped in a pool. It was just dusty too. I’d Q-tip my ears, and it was black.

Did you have any fun when you were filming, despite the heat?

Pratt: Fishing. There was a pond there, [so] on my breaks I was down there fishing every day. That was awesome.

Washington: Small conversations become what it’s all about. A movie like this, you get to find out who people are. I can’t think of another movie where I had six co-stars and everybody’s trying to do their best. It’s interesting, it’s rich. We all wanted to make a good movie.

What do you think makes this story feel so universal and timeless to all viewers, rather than just shoot-’em-up Western lovers?

Pratt: Justice and revenge are pretty universal desires, but there’s heart to these characters, and you care about them. Anytime you see the growth of somebody who goes from being selfish to joining the men and women to fight for a cause that’s bigger than themselves? I think there’s something universally appealing about that.

Washington: We all want to feel like there are some people out there—men or women—who will help you, and that they’re willing to. I mean, we look at what’s going on around the world now and those guys and women who are willing to put themselves on the line. They’re doing the real work. So these [cowboys], in some small way, represent that.

Both of you have wonderful wives and kids supporting you. How are they all doing?

Washington: My youngest son, Malcolm, just graduated from AFI [the American Film Institute]. And then his brother John stars on Ballers. And his sister Olivia is on a new show. And Katia is the associate producer on Fences. So they’re all doing well.

Pratt: I’ve been on the road for 14 months—I did three movies back to back to back—so I’m taking six months off.

Washington: [To Chris] You want to finish the race. Or you’ll die on the backstretch.

Pratt: I’m taking Jack to Jack’s Beach—which is what we named the little stretch of beach on an island up on the San Juan Islands where we got a place. We’re going to go back to the fort we built about a month and a half ago when we went for a short visit and see if that’s still there. If not, we’re going to build it again.

What message do you hope The Magnificent Seven audiences take away from the film?

Pratt: That just because you’ve done bad things doesn’t mean you’re not a good guy.

AMG/Parade Digital

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